'Coolest of the Cool'

r e g i n A l d M ac d o n A l d 255 the Kingsburgh Family Book, published privately in 1961, as one of those MICHAEL YELLOWLEES ‘who in the early decades of that [nineteenth] century so materially helped to build up and consolidate the Indian Empire’. Reginald’s great grand- mother was Flora Macdonald, Charles Edward Stuart’s saviour in the ‘Coolest of The Cool’ aftermath of the 1745 rebellion. Macdonald had no recollection of his father who died of an unknown illness in Lucknow in 1842. The following A portrait of Reginald Macdonald XI of Kingsburgh year his uncle, Major James Somerled Macdonald X of Kingsburgh, died childless and the title passed to his young nephew. By this time it carried no lands or wealth and was simply the territorial designation of the tack or long lease formerly held by the family at Snizort on the Isle of Skye. The Kingsburgh Family Book records, that like his father, Macdonald was educated at Elgin Academy and subsequently at Eton. He was not one of the school’s most gifted pupils, and his school days and career in the civil service are aptly summed up in a poem describing former alumni: There are some who did nothing at school, much since; And others much then, since naught… There were several duffers and several bores Whose faces I’ve half forgot, Whom I lived among, when the world was young, And who talked ‘no end of rot’; Are they now little clerks who stroll in the parks Or scribble with grimy fist? Or rich little peers who live on Scotch moors? Well, they’re all in the Old School List With little family wealth to support him Macdonald was forced to seek Reginald John Somerled Macdonald XI gainful employment, and with few connections and no qualifications his of Kingsburgh (1840-76).(The Library of options were limited. He chose not to follow a career in the military and Nineteenth-Century Photography) instead entered the civil service. In 1859 he was appointed as a clerk in the Colonial Office and in time rose through the ranks to become privy secre- he coolest of the cool’ was how Edward Whymper described tary to various Colonial Secretaries. ‘This climbing partner, Reginald Macdonald. Other contemporary Why or when Macdonald first began climbing is not clear, but it is accounts corroborate Whymper’s opinion of Macdonald, whose exploits likely that he was first introduced to it by a colleague in the civil service. included a significant number of first ascents and passages. The Reverend One of his first climbing companions was Henry Norris, a fellow clerk Hereford Brooke George in his account of their crossing of the Col du Tour in the Colonial Office, with whom he climbed the Weisstor, Monte Rosa Noir above Argentière in 1863 noted that his ‘attachment to rocks is noto- (3642m) in August 1860 along with Norris’s cousin, the Reverend Charles rious and constant’, while his climbing style was described by his brother- Style. This solitary ascent appears to have been sufficient to qualify him for in-law, William Hall, as ‘somewhat monkey’. While many of Macdonald’s membership of the Alpine Club in February 1861. In July of that year he climbs are recorded in the Alpine Journal, Walt Unsworth in his Encyclopedia and Whymper completed the first British ascent of the highest summit of of Mountaineering suggests that his exploits have not received the recogni- Mont Pelvoux (3946m) in the Dauphiné. In his Scrambles Amongst the Alps tion they deserve. Whymper recorded that the climb gave him as much satisfaction as subse- Reginald John Somerled Macdonald was born on 1 October 1840 in quent more difficult ones, describing it as a ‘very delightful scramble’. He Jhansi in northern India. He was the son of Captain Allan Macdonald also referred to ‘our companion on Mont Pelvoux [Macdonald] to whom of the 4th Bengal Native Infantry and Anne Smith, the daughter of his so much of our success had been due’. commanding officer, Major-General John Smith. Allan was described in Macdonald’s climbing career began in earnest in the summer of 1862 and 254 256 T h e A l p i n e J o u r n A l 2 0 1 3 r e g i n A l d M ac d o n A l d 257 for the next three years he spent three or four weeks each summer climbing state and abundance of the snow in the couloirs’. They then turned their in the Alps. In mid-June 1862, along with Charles Mathews and Francis attention to the Dent d’Hérens (4171m), which it was universally agreed Tuckett, he spent a frustrating week in Chamonix where the weather was ‘challenges comparison in mass and grandeur with its great neighbour [the ‘thoroughly and unremittingly bad’. Macdonald and Mathews then crossed Matterhorn]’. Their attempt almost failed before it had started when Grove to Courmayeur via the Cols des Fours and de la Seigne. On 25 June they got separated from the party leading to unfounded fears that he had been crossed the Col du Géant and two days later ascended Mont Blanc by the murdered by a local chalet owner – a ‘Sheikh of the Alps, black bearded, Aiguille du Goûter and the Bosses. Macdonald then crossed to Zermatt by patriarchal in appearance’. On 12 August, with Grove back in the fold, the the Col d’Hérens where he met up with Whymper with whom he made party crossed the Grandes Murailles glacier and ascended the south-west two attempts on the Matterhorn from Breuil (modern day Cervinia). On face of the mountain. At 12.30pm Macdonald and Montagu Woodmass the first ascent they reached the arête below the Chimney before being summited, thanks in no small part to Anderegg who spent a large part of driven back by bad weather. Two days later they reached the Great Tower, the day hewing steps ‘the shape and size of Glastonbury chairs’. They were but were again forced to retreat this time due to illness to one of the party. joined shortly after by Hall and on surveying the view from the summit all Whymper records that Jean-Antoine Carel, one of the guides, refused to were in agreement that it was superior to that from any other mountain go on, but ‘Macdonald, ever the coolest of the cool, suggested we could do they had climbed. Their success was made all the sweeter by the fact that without them, but our better judgment prevailed’. With his vacation at an six days earlier Whymper had failed in his attempt: ‘This was the only end Macdonald returned to London. mountain in the Alps which I have essayed to ascend, that has not sooner In the summer of 1863 Macdonald returned to Chamonix and on 20 or later fallen to me. Our failure was mortifying.’ Moore also admitted July with Frederick Morshead, Adolphus Moore, the Reverend George, he ‘felt horribly envious of Macdonald and his successful attempt on this Russell Stephenson, and their guides Peter Perren, Melchior Anderegg and fortress’. This first ascent was quickly followed by another, Macdonald, Christian Almer made the third recorded passage of the Col de Miage, Hall, Woodmass and Grove, with Anderegg and Perren, ascending the between Les Contamines and Courmayeur. They attempted to find an Parrotspitze (4432m) by the Lysjoch. Macdonald’s season was rounded alternative route up Mont Blanc from the Brenva glacier, but the route off with an ascent of the Galenstock (3583m) and crossings of the Oberaar- was dismissed by Anderegg and Perren as too steep and dangerous. Two joch, one of the oldest glacier passes in the Alps, and the Strahlegg. days later Macdonald and George with Almer and Anderegg made the first The following year Macdonald returned to the Alps and at the end of passage of the Col du Tour Noir between the Aiguille d’Argentière and the July 1864 with Stephen and Grove crossed the Klausen Pass to the east of Tour Noir, a feat not repeated until 1890. George’s account of the expedi- Altdorf. They failed in their attempt on the Claridenstock but did complete tion is considered one of the finest climbing accounts of the period. He a first passage of the Scheerjoch (now known as the Kammlilucke) between recorded how the party travelled by carriage from Chamonix to Martigny. Maderanertal and Unterschächen. After an unsuccessful attempt to cross This particularly pleased Almer and Anderegg as it asserted ‘the dignity of the Winterberg Ridge, they made the first passage of the Wetterlücke Englishmen and Oberlanders before the eyes of the assembled natives’. The between Tschingelhorn and the Lauterbrunnen Breithorn. On 7 August party crossed from Argentière to Osières by the ridge between the Aigu- they attended a wrestling match between the men of the Hasli and Lauter- ille d’Argentière and the Tour Noir and then descended to Osières by the brunnen valleys held on the neutral ground of the Wengen Alp. They left Saleina glacier. As George reported ‘we had made, entirely by mistake, a Lauterbrunnen two days later and ascended the Rottal intending to cross new pass which no-one had even known to exist’. To prove to any doubters the Lowinen Thor over the formidable barrier that separates the Rottal that a pass existed George applied the unanswerable syllogism: ‘Between from the valley of the Aletsch glacier. No-one had previously found a way every two adjacent peaks there is a pass. The Tour Noir and Aiguille over the ridge which had proved ‘to be so obstinate and serious an obstacle’.

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